


The Inconvenient Truth of Our Feelings

by Codango



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Angst and Feels, Developing Friendships, Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, Female Friendship, Gen, Heartbreak, Possibly Unrequited Love, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 23:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14658600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codango/pseuds/Codango
Summary: The first time Hinoe met Hiiragi, she thought the blonde might as well be human, she was that boring. She seemed to be one of the old-fashioned youkai, who saw nothing more in themselves than to serve and be used up.“Look at her,” Hinoe groused to Natsume later. She had brought a bottle of sake to the boy’s bedroom, ostensibly to drink with Madara but mostly to let Natsume know that his friend’s newest shiki was horrendous. “She’s never more than two steps behind that man whenever I look at her. Always with that horrid staff, too. It’s like she's cosplaying as a samurai.”





	The Inconvenient Truth of Our Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Not Hinoe/Hiiragi! I just think Hinoe makes a badass supporting friend to Natsume and Madara, and I watched an episode where I felt so bad for poor Hiiragi, hurtling toward heartbreak, and I thought, damn, you know what she needs? She needs to get drunk with Hinoe.
> 
> So. This is that.

The first time Hinoe met Hiiragi, she thought the blonde might as well be human, she was that boring. She seemed to be one of the old-fashioned youkai, who saw nothing more in themselves than to serve and be used up.

“Look at her,” Hinoe groused to Natsume later. She had brought a bottle of sake to the boy’s bedroom, ostensibly to drink with Madara but mostly to let Natsume know that his friend’s newest shiki was horrendous. “She’s never more than two steps behind that man whenever I look at her. Always with that horrid staff, too. It’s like she's cosplaying as a samurai.”

Hinoe had learned about cosplay from a magazine that a pretty girl had left on a bench at a bus stop. It was very humorous. Humans could occasionally be entertaining. _Anyone_ could be more entertaining than Hiiragi.

“I think she’s doing what she wants to do,” Natsume said mildly, folding his laundry.

If anyone was boring, it should be Natsume Takashi. The boy was nothing like his fiery grandmother (how Hinoe missed her still). And yet, she found herself wandering up to his bedroom window to see if he was home…waiting to sense him in the forest…listening for her name that he would never call. When she was with him, she never wanted to leave. Simple as that.

“No one wants to traipse after a man waiting for him to tell them to go away with a hundred different demeaning commands.” Hinoe jabbed her smoking pipe into the air for emphasis. “Some people _think_ that’s what they want, but nobody really does.”

“Yes, why can’t everyone be as enlightened and lonely as you?” Madara’s green cat eyes sparkled at her over the rim of his sake cup.

Hinoe would have thrown a curse at him for that, but Natsume had made it clear he disapproved of fights in his room. See? Boring.

“I think Sensei’s right,” Natsume commented. “Hiiragi was lonely for a long time.” He went still for a moment. “A long time,” he repeated softly. “And she sees Natori-san as rescuing her from that.”

Hinoe sipped her sake thoughtfully.

* * *

 

The second time Hinoe met Hiiragi, the blonde was sitting up ramrod straight in Natsume’s closet. Hinoe nearly choked on her pipe.

“What is _she_ doing here?” She glared at Natsume. “If you were looking for someone to replace Madara, you could have let me know!”

“No, Hinoe—” Natsume sounded weary.

“I am not replacing anyone,” Hiiragi said in her emotionless voice. “I am being held prisoner.”

Hinoe raised an eyebrow. “Really? Natsume, if you were looking for a prisoner, you could have let me know.”

Madara guffawed, but Natsume wiped a hand over his face. “I’m not keeping anyone prisoner! Natori-san asked that we keep an eye on her while he’s away filming his latest movie!”

“Oh?” Hinoe was once again filled with misgivings for the man. “Wants you to keep his possessions under lock and key, does he?”

“Natori-sama is not like that,” Hiiragi intoned. Always with that perfectly level way of speaking. “This is the most civil way he could think of ensuring I would follow his orders.”

Hinoe gaped at her. Madara was cackling. Natsume sighed.

“Hiiragi ingested some poison fumes from an exorcism recently,” he explained. “She shouldn’t be traveling.”

“I should be at my master’s side,” Hiiragi countered in the most forceful tone Hinoe had heard from her. Which was to say, not very.

Hinoe eyed her pallor, noting the shallow breaths, the limp hair, the pale hands with their blue nails. She sucked on her pipe. “You should be immobile for two weeks,” she clipped.

“But he might need me.”

“He did all right before you came along and threw yourself into his path, begging to be exorcized,” Hinoe retorted.

Hiiragi’s mask covered her entire face, wide-eyed and smiling and giving nothing away. She sat seiza, perfectly immobile.

Hinoe blew out a plume of smoke awkwardly.

“Of course you are right,” Hiiragi said at last. “Natori-sama is a very intelligent traveler and would most likely not require my help.” She gave a slight bow of her head and slid the closet door quietly shut.

As one, Natsume and Madara whipped their heads around to glare at Hinoe. Hinoe winced and sucked at her pipe.

* * *

 

When Hinoe had lost track of the number of times she’d met Hiiragi, she was too drunk to have counted anything anyway. Hinoe had taken up her post at the sake spring early that morning and had no intention of moving for a long, long time. She’d just sent Madara off for some food, and it was anyone’s guess if he’d even come back, and if he did, with what. He was almost as soused as Hinoe. It had been a rough day for both of them.

So when Hiiragi settled primly next to her on the boulder where she lounged in her rumpled kimono, Hinoe merely said, “Dammit.”

“That curse does not work on youkai,” Hiiragi observed.

“Dunno why it doesn’t work on you then.” Hinoe shoved hair out of her eyes. Her coiffure was a wreck. “No passion to you, no spark. Hardly a youkai.”

“Is that what has led you to this state?” Hiiragi turned that enigmatic mask to regard her straight on. “The teary face, the blotchy cheeks, the tangled hair, the stained attire… Passion and spark did this?”

A curse that certainly would work on youkai sprang to Hinoe’s lips, but her tears were too quick for her. She plunged her cup in to the sake spring to hide her sniffles. “Don’t look if it bothers you,” was all she ended up saying. A very weak showing.

“Not at all. I am ascertaining if I am doing this correctly.”

Hinoe paused with her cup halfway to her lips and watched, dumbfounded, as Hiiragi pulled an ancient sake cup from her enormous sleeve. She leaned forward to fill it gracefully from the spring and held it aloft. She looked into the depths of the shimmering liquor. “Natori-sama is engaged. I read it in a human newspaper.” Her voice was barely audible when she added, “He did not even tell me.”

Hinoe closed her eyes. Hot tears squeezed through the barrier and slid messily down her face. “You’re doing it right.” She forced a lilt into her voice and threw back a swallow. She opened her eyes and smiled bitterly at her new drinking companion. “Natsume has gone away to university.” And her heart, tied to this forest just as it had been tied to the name Natsume for nearly a century, had to break in two.

Hiiragi sucked in a breath, the most shocked sound Hinoe had ever heard her make. “Natsume is gone? But I saw Madara on my way here.”

“Did he have manjuu or ikayaki?”

“He had…a bottle of sake that was nearly as big as his cat form.”

“Why, that useless old—never mind.” Hinoe sliced a hand through the air. “Natsume said none of us should go with him, that we shouldn’t leave our forest just to disrupt his studies.” She snorted. “As if there aren’t youkai everywhere, waiting to fall into his arms.”

“But…but Madara.” Hiiragi seemed genuinely distraught. “He said he planned to be drunk for ages. I thought he was joking, but now... How can he be apart from Natsume?”

“Madara is a perfect example,” Hinoe snapped, shaking a finger, “of why only foolish youkai love humans. You’ll have your heart torn out of your chest sooner rather than later and no matter what. And before you know it, you’re on your own and lonelier than you ever could have been before.”

Hiiragi stared at her. Or probably, she stared. The mask conveyed staring at all times, but now Hinoe could _feel_ it. Slowly, Hiiragi reached out, the sleeve of her kimono covering her knuckles, and blotted Hinoe’s cheeks.

“I heard an exorcist laugh once,” Hiiragi began, “at a woman who loved a youkai. He died in a cruel way, and she was distraught.”

Hinoe sniffed loudly, her eyes on Hiiragi’s mask.

“The exorcist said that the pain was no more than she deserved, loving a creature that was born to bring suffering to all, including to itself.” Hiiragi sat back and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

“You love an exorcist,” Hinoe pointed out.

“Yes.” Hiiragi reached for her cup again. “He would never laugh at someone else’s distress.”

“Would he be so understanding of yours?” Hinoe was genuinely curious. “You have never told him your feelings.”

“You have never told Natsume yours.”

Hinoe scoffed and drained her sake. “Our feelings are different, yours and mine. He has the soul of his grandmother. It still has me in its sway.” She leaned forward with a sigh to fill her cup again. “And he’s a sweet boy in his own way.” Soothing to be around. Calming. Like fishing at a cool river on a lazy summer day.

Hiiragi did not argue. Well, she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the type. “I don’t think the exorcist was all that wrong,” she said suddenly.

Hinoe’s eyes popped open wide. “The horrible man who laughed when a woman’s lover died?”

Hiiragi turned her gaze to the shimmering gold of the spring in front of them. “He was wrong in that.”

“ _And_ he was wrong about how youkai are—what was it?—born to bring suffering?” Hinoe barked.

“That, too.” Was there almost a smile in Hiiragi’s voice?

“Then enlighten me.” Hinoe made sure her sarcasm was evident. “How was that man in any way correct about anything?”

Hiiragi was still and quiet for a long moment. “I think he thought the same as you. That love between a youkai and a human is the height of foolishness.”

It _was_ , but Hinoe didn’t much care for her thoughts to match up with some self-serving bastard of an exorcist.

“After all, they have such tiny lives…” Hiiragi’s voice trembled. “…and their faltering sight…and their impossible hearts…” Her cup fell to the rock she sat on and shattered. Her hands darted underneath the smiling mask and stayed there while her shoulders shook.

Hinoe let her own cup fall into the spring. She wrapped an arm around Hiiragi’s shoulders, fierce and tight.

“We’ll prove that man right once more,” she growled. “Born to bring suffering, are we? Who are we to deny fate?”

Hiiragi’s head snapped up. “No, Hinoe—!”

“I will take Madara to this university of Natsume’s myself. We will not be tossed aside.” She refused to think how much it would hurt to leave the forest. She had felt worse in her life. “And you will tell Natori-san you love him and dare him to marry this other person after that.” Hinoe gave her a savage grin. “We will make them suffer with the inconvenient truth of our feelings.”

Hiiragi stared at her. Tears dripped from underneath her mask. Then she leaned forward and fished Hinoe’s cup from the spring. She took a long sip, then handed it to Hinoe. “It is our destiny after all.”

Hinoe took the cup, feeling the glow of purpose spread through her veins. “Destiny. Such a pretty word.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [@codango](http://codango.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, but while it reinvents itself, you can find me on my website: [marcellachristie.com](http://marcellachristie.com/). It'll lead you to my Twitter, etc.


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